Judge lifts ex-cop's restrictive custody

Slaying suspect is being held in downtown federal jail

Former police officer Steve Manning, who now uses the name Steven Mandell, shown in 2004 at the Dirksen Federal Building. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

A federal judge on Thursday ordered a former Chicago police officer accused in a bizarre plot to murder and dismember a local businessman released from restrictive custody at a downtown federal jail despite concerns of prosecutors that an informant could be at risk.

U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve, however, barred Steven Mandell from using the email system available to inmates in the general population or trying to persuade other inmates to send emails on his behalf.

"I know you are very intelligent, and I also know you are creative," she told him.

In the eight months since Mandell was arrested on the sensational charges, he has been jailed in the Special Housing Unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where detainees are held in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day and given no access to the rooftop exercise yard and limited contact with visitors.

Lawyers for Mandell, 63, sought his removal from the unit, arguing that the conditions have aggravated his heart disease and diabetes.

In court Thursday, St. Eve noted that prosecutors had argued behind the scenes to keep Mandell in restrictive custody, citing concern for the safety of the confidential informant at the center of the case and the possibility of Mandell "reaching out to others" about the informant.

But St. Eve said she heard no evidence that Mandell had tried to contact the informant. She also pointed to reports that Mandell's medical issues have worsened during his time in restrictive custody.

"I'm concerned about the health of Mr. Mandell," the judge said. "It has clearly deteriorated."

Shackled and dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit, Mandell braced himself on the lectern, sighed heavily into the microphone and promised to abide by the judge's orders.

"I will not embarrass this court," Mandell said in a deep voice. "There is no message. There is no messenger. I just want my day in court, your honor."

Mandell, who once went by the name Steven Manning, was booted from Chicago Police Department for insurance fraud in the 1980s and later sent to death row for the 1990 slaying of a truck driver. His murder conviction was overturned on appeal, and Mandell successfully sued the FBI for framing him, winning a landmark $6.5 million judgment from a federal jury. However, a judge later threw out the damages, and Manning never saw a penny.

The latest case unfolded in October when federal agents swooped in and arrested him and his alleged accomplice, Gary Engel, as they prepared to abduct a businessman from a Northwest Side realty office, authorities said. Prosecutors alleged that Mandell and Engel planned to take the victim to a nearby vacant office space they called Club Med, extort him of his cash, force him to sign over his real estate holdings, then kill and dismember him.

Engel hanged himself in his cell in November, authorities said.

In a new indictment filed earlier this year, Mandell was accused of conspiring to murder an heir of the businessman if the heir made a claim on the businessman's properties after his slaying. He also plotted the murder of yet another victim in exchange for a cut of proceeds from a strip club, authorities alleged.

After his arrest, Mandell called his wife from the jail and asked her to get rid of evidence in the case, the indictment alleged.